Leering Touches
by MyMagentaPeach
Summary: There is something Kurt has not told Blaine about the rape he went through. As they attempt to recover together from the tearing pain, Kurt learns just how not alone he is, in both the best and the worst of ways. As always please don't read if you might get triggered in any way.
1. Leering Touches

**Disclaimer:** I do very gladly not own Glee.**  
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**A/N: **I have nothing to say, except I hope I don't scare any of you with this.

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><p><strong>Leering Touches<br>**

„I don't feel love."

„Kurt."

„I don't even feel loved."

Blaine is left to only stare at Kurt.

"Everything I feel is that pain. The hurt. On the good days," Kurt sobs out, "On the good days it is numbing."

"You cannot do this to yourself."

"What? What am I doing…what have I ever done to myself?"

"I don't want you to feel numb," Blaine brings out.

"Maybe I do."

"You don't mean that Kurt," Blaine replies shaking his head with every bit of conviction he has.

Blaine reaches out for Kurt.

"Don't touch me," Kurt hisses at him, eyes full of dread that turns them hard and cold.

"I won't hurt you, how can you question that," Blaine looks horrified at the idea of Kurt thinking that.

"Don't you understand…," Kurt shouts, then grows quiet all of a sudden.

That abrupt quiet is much more worrying to Blaine than all of Kurt's shouting and crying the last weeks has ever been.

Trying to reach out for his boyfriend once more, Blaine freezes mid-motion as he hears Kurt say, in a suprisingly loud voice, "…that's right, because I never told you."

"Kurt?"

No answer.

"Didn't tell me what Kurt?" Blaine chokes out, unsure if he wants to know, as certain as one person can be that he needs to. "Didn't tell me what Kurt?" And there is that desperate tone to Blaine's voice again.

"ARGH!" It is all Kurt brings out before cowering curled up on himself in the middle of the room, on the ice-white, blank floor.

"Babe," Blaine says as he moves to tenderly rest a hand on Kurt's right shoulder.

But at the barest contact Kurt is on his feet again, stumbling backwards towards the end of the room, as far away as possible from Blaine, shouting "Don't," in a desperate voice. His eyes never leaving Blaine.

Then he suddenly sounds pleading, "Stay away please."

"Kurt, Love. I don't understand. I know he hurt you, raped you." Blaine chockes out, "But you know I would never hurt you. Never."

"I know," Kurt says, sinking down against the wall, "But that makes no difference anymore."

As Blaine slowly walks over, Kurt's eyes follow Blaine's every step. And Kurt bursts into tears when he remembers that once having been a good thing, not being able to take his eyes of his beautiful, talented, lovely, loving boyfriend; and the dancing and singing and laughing together.

"I miss you so much," Blaine whispers as he sinks down against the same wall but meters away from Kurt, crying tears as heavy as Kurt's.

"I miss missing you so much," Kurt half-echoes Blaine's utterance, meaning distorted by such a tiny change so easily, 'Like I am distorted,' Kurt cannot help but think.

"Please, tell me, Kurt," Blaine begs, "Allow me to try to help."

"You know what happened."

"I clearly am missing something very important."

'Important, Blaine still thinks there are things that are important', Kurt thinks. While Kurt himself cannot find anything matters anymore.

'But,' Kurt thinks, 'even if it does not help me it might help him move on, I have nothing to give anymore to Blaine but Blaine himself, his freedom to move on from me. He deserves better than being weighed down by me.'

"You were all so relieved I did not have to stay in the hospital too long. His touches were disgusting, especially in their…I don't know what to call it. Lightness? Softness?" He tries to bring out the word "Gentlene…", but Blaine watches Kurt choke on the absurdness of a rape having anything to do with such a word, and suddenly Kurt, clasping his hands over his mouth, is scrambling to his feet and running into the bathroom.

Blaine is by his side in seconds, and watches helpless as his boyfriend, who hasn't eaten in days, keeps dry-heaving into the toilet.

"I want to hold you," Blaine sounds so desperate.

"You cannot, Blaine, you cannot do that to me. I wish he had beaten me up and bruised me, and almost killed me," Kurt sobs.

"Don't say that," Blaine whispers to not startle Kurt more.

"Don't you understand. If only it had been brutal I could at least find comfort in your touch right now. And stop whispering, please. He did that too."

"I am sorry," Blaine speaks up immediately.

"I want to want you to hold me. But every truly gentle touch of yours brings back his leering lingering…" and with that Kurt is dryheaving again for minutes.

When he stops he brings himself to say, "There was nothing gentle about any of those touches, nothing true. But he is in my head. I don't know how to get him out. I don't know."

"What can I do for you Kurt? Love, there must be something!"

"No. Right now…there, there is nothing."

Overwhelmed by the constant strain of intense emotion and the lack of nutrition Kurt moments later collapses on the bathroom floor.

Blaine has him wrapped in his arms within seconds, moves to moisten a washcloth and gently cleans the most crude of dirt, mixed with cold sweat and tears, of Kurt's face.

As Blaine carries Kurt into their bedroom he says in a loud and clear voice, "I am not giving up on you, Love."

"Love," Kurt mumbles back out of his dreamscape.

"Yes Kurt, Love."


	2. The Right Place For Love

**A/N: **Crying and feeling sad. Waiting for sleep to claim me, as desperately as Kurt does in this story.

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><p><strong>The Right Place For Love<strong>

They haven't slept in the same bed since Kurt was raped, months ago.

In the beginning, when not passed out from exhaustion somewhere around the house, Kurt had taken to locking himself inside their former shared bedroom. And Blaine had spent night after night, sitting on the floor, in front of their door, desperately wishing he could hold the boy whose crying he could hear through the door every single night, for hours.

What frightens Blaine more than the crying is that Kurt has stopped taking care of himself.

Blaine had taken it upon himself to check every single day, twice, if Kurt had touched any of the skin and hair care products in the bathroom cabinet, only to find them all gone one day.

He still wants to ask but is afraid to upset the boy who is growing more of a stranger to him with every day.

It takes about two months until Kurt stops locking the door, and Blaine only finds out by accident, when, getting up from where he has been sitting once again in front of their bedroom door, he happens to reach for the door handle to pull himself up.

It takes another month, spend in front of the door, until Blaine dares to reenter the room and watch Kurt sleep.

Tonight is one of the worst nights Blaine has witnessed so far, with Kurt curled up on himself letting out constant whimpering sounds. Blaine has shed so many silent tears. He wonders how it is he still has any left to shed at all.

He does not wish to drown out the sound but to draw the pain out of every fiber of Kurt's being when he begins to softly hum, nothing but nonsensical harmonies and melodies.

It takes a while but Kurt, if not stilling completely, calms and relaxes more than Blaine has seen him in what seems like an eternity of its own.

It is an enormous relief to Blaine to accidentally find that there still is something he can do for his lover. Not nearly as much as he wants to, nowhere near as much as he wants to, but something.

'Something has to be enough for now,' Blaine thinks as he himself, still softly humming, drifts of to sleep, leaning against the wall next to their bed.

Blaine wakes up to find Kurt sitting on their bed, legs crossed and pulled tight to his chest, staring unblinking at him, expression vacant.

"Why are you in here?"

"Kurt, I…"

"Why are you in here?" Kurt is beginning to sound panicked.

"I still want to be close to you," Blaine tries to explain.

"You can't be close to me, no one can. I don't want you to."

"I love you, Kurt."

"Don't. I don't want that."

"What?" Blaine asks hoping to find out more about how Kurt feels.

"Don't try to convince me I want to be near you."

"But I wasn't…." Blaine knows he himself feels helpless.

"There is no _but_ Blaine," Kurt almost shouts.

As Blaine moves to kneel in front of the bed and reaches out an arm to touch Kurt's left hand, resting on the sheets, Kurt flinches heavily and scoots back so far he almost falls of the other side of the bed. Only stopping himself from losing his balance in the last second by clawing the fingers of both his hands deep into the sheets, his knuckles turning nearly translucent.

"Why would you try that?" Kurt sounds accusing, tears streaming in thick strands down his face.

"Kurt, I need you to know, you are not ugly, you are still so beautiful to me."

"That is the worst thing you have ever said to me," Blaine looks taken aback by Kurt's words, but Kurt isn't done yet, "What if I want to be ugly? Don't try to tell me how I should feel."

"Kurt?" It is all Blaine can say, feeling the build up of confusion and tears behind his own eyes.

There is silence, then Blaine asks "Is that why you have stopped using your products?"

"I cannot risk it happening again. If only I was uglier, none of this would ever have happened. "

"You don't know that," Blaine tries to sooth Kurt's thoughts.

"He kept calling me pretty boy, Blaine. _Pretty boy_. The same Karofsky had in high school, for weeks before it escalated in the locker room with the kiss. If only I was uglier, none of this…."

"Stop it!" Blaine screams getting to his feet.

Kurt is kneeling frozen on the sheets.

"Stop it Kurt. How can you say that? How can you think this to be true? People in all shapes and sizes get abused and molested and raped every day. Chances are that asshole picked you randomly out of a crowed, I wish I could tell you why, to give you at least that kind of peace, but I can't. As little as you can allow it to change you."

"Blaine, in case you haven't fucking noticed, it already has."

"Of course I have noticed. Please, PLEASE Kurt, you cannot give him more than he has already taken. You are surrendering to your fear. And I understand it is so fucking hard to fight back, but I cannot allow you to give up. You are still my Kurt, the boy I fell in love with. And my Kurt always fights back with everything he has."

"He is not here anymore."

"Damn it, yes, he is. You are."

"I don't feel like me anymore," Kurt admits for the first time since the attack.

"Please, Love, let me help you. There must be something I can do for you. Anything. Allow me to try and ease your pain. You are part of me, I am hurting too. Allow me to help us grow to a point where you can trust me again. I don't want to give up on you. Could not if I ever wanted to. You are the better part of me. Don't ask me to rip you out of me. That is something that I could not survive. Things have been taken from us before. Your first kiss, our feeling of safty, of security in our own skin. But when we found each other we somehow became whole again. Together we can always be whole again. I will never doubt that much. Don't start doubting us Kurt, please don't. We, Us, is the one thing that has always been right, no matter what."

Kurt is slowly lying back down onto his side, trembling all over and curling up on himself.

When he speaks again Kurt sounds soft. "Can you get a blanket for me. I have not been able to sleep under the covers. It feels so wrong without you next to me," and it is the first time since the attack that Kurt admits to missing Blaine too, in some way at least, of somehow still longing to be close to Blaine.

Blaine nods and a second later he is back with a warm blanket.

As he covers Kurt's whole body with the soft material a tear slips from Blaine's eye, unnoticed by Kurt.

Blaine almost leans down and places a kiss to Kurt's temple, like he always used to – whenever taking care of a sick Kurt – but Blaine thinks better of it in time to suppress the impulse.

"At first I thought I had dreamed it, but you sang to me last night, didn't you?" Kurt asks.

Sitting back down on the floor in Kurt's field of vision Blaine says, "Yes, well, hummed a little."

"It felt good to have you near me, to be near you, like that. Can you…Would you…"

Kurt cannot finish the sentence, but he does not have to, "Always," is the last thing Blaine says before he begins to hum once again.

It is the first time since the attack that Kurt does not have to fight for sleep to claim him.


	3. The Gated Ways

**A/N: **Yes, after all this time I found a third chapter of this in me, and an OC: _Elly_. I hope you find love in yourself for her. I do love her, _dearly_.

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><p><strong>The Gated Ways<strong>

"I have been swallowed up…swallowed whole, by other's...other people's, " Kurt struggles for a word fitting, "...darkness before."

Elly stays quiet, listens less for the words, more...more for the meaning.

Blaine does too, keeps…keeps listening; he always does just that, when Kurt and Elly talk, with words, and everything else they have, everything else they are both comfortable with.

Blaine wishes he could be the one talking with Kurt. He also knows Kurt needs to get this out,…in words, in ways of his own. Say this, say anything and everything in... _a way that feels like ...himself._

Having to make something like this a part of yourself, having to ponder on it, re- and re-think it, over and over, Blaine cannot imagine the pain. He knows Kurt, who had locked himself away for so long after the rape, his rape, still only allows Blaine glimpses of what he truly felt then…feels now.

Blaine is willing to take everything Kurt wants to, Kurt can share, while still feeling safe...somehow. Or that is at least what Blaine hopes is the case.

Blaine has been looking in from the outside, for a while now, as day after day Kurt re-thinks all that happened, is happening to him, to them, to life,...so that he does not have to relive it feeling alone and helpless forever, as he had for so long, too long already, after he had been raped.

It has been over seven months now.

The real change in Kurt, real steps forward...came with Elly.

Blaine is glad, _So glad, so incredibly glad, _that in Elly, a young girl, just 17, who's rape had been so similar to Kurt's, Kurt has found someone he feels he can talk to.

Blaine understands that Kurt does not feel like he can talk to him about it. Blaine does consider it a great privilege that Elly and Kurt allow him, these days, to sit with them, and listen to them talking. It had not always been the case, understandably.

They, Kurt and Elly first met about three months ago, at the police station when they both had been asked to come in and recount their assaults once more when another case had come up similar to theirs.

They had bumped into each other in the corridor, not knowing what the other was there for. But they had instantly known, seen, each other's pain.

It takes one to know one - a shallow sounding statement that sometimes still proves to be true. It had that day.

The terrified, apologetic look they had caught on each other's face at the so simple seeming involuntary contact had been a dead give-away to both of them.

Blaine had stood at the sidelines and watched the intensity of the instant knowledge build a bond between the two that Blaine cannot help feel jealous about still some days,…against all reason.

At first it had been meetings between Elly and Kurt over coffee, at the diner down the street. Both more comfortable in a neutral, open setting. They had moved to Kurt and Blaine's apartment only after they had one day really gotten talking about what has happened to both of them, and painfully dry throats had been followed by tears and sobs...and then...a wish for more privacy, from both of them.

Even then it had still stayed a hesitant exchange for what had felt like a very long time, to both of them - conversations remaining abstract, all details too painful still to speak out loud at all.

So feelings, first and foremost feelings - disgust, shame, guilt, and that pain, the never ending pain - had been the main topic they came to choose together to stay with, for a while, until they had been able to feel somewhat okay with saying anything to each other about the actual physical acts of having been raped.

And so it had happened that, only after knowing each other already for almost two months, they had discovered that the guys who hurt them might be one and the same man.

Discretely as their cases had been treated they had never before known they had been in the police station that day to, likely, talk about one and the same guy. The police had only told each of them that they were trying to look for patterns in the assaults that had happened over the last year, and had therefore asked all victims willing, to come back into the station, to make sure no details had been missed in any case.

The day they had found out, it was a real possibility, had been the one they had started beginning to try and talk with each other about some of the most gruesome, painful details of their attacks.

It had been long before they had ever allowed Blaine to listen in on their talks, both Elly and Kurt not at all comfortable with the idea back then - in the first weeks banning Blaine from the apartment altogether, to make sure. Not because Kurt did not trust Blaine to respect their boundaries, simply to _feel__ surer _of the safety Elly and Kurt both needed, still need desperately to feel certain of.

_"The same guy?" _Blaine had asked, trying to keep sadness and anger in, after Kurt had told him it might be a possibility, maybe more than that.

"_They call it an equal-opportunity rapist," _Kurt had blurted out that evening, sitting opposite Blaine at dinner, having nothing but poked at his salad for the last ten minutes.

It had been the day after Blaine had first sung Kurt to sleep that Kurt had started to try to really eat again.

Five weeks after that, when they had finished a whole meal together, for the first time in so long, Blaine had started crying, then sobbing, while they had been doing the dishes together.

And so the evening had lead to another first since the attack. _"Can I hold your hand?"_ Kurt had asked hesitantly, longing to spend comfort somehow. And holding hands had allways been important...to both of them.

Blaine had nodded in surprise, the shock enough for him to stop his tears altogether.

So they had left the dishes be and made their way to the living room couch. Both carefully sitting down at opposite ends at first.

"_Can you…I just need to know I can stop whenever I want…I…can I…can you…,"_ Kurt had stopped dead, his head hanging, breaths shaky.

"_Tell me what you need me to do. Whatever you need," _Blaine had said in a voice clear and confident, much more sounding so than Blaine had felt it that night.

Whispering, soft or not, is still enough for Kurt to curl up in bed and not come back out of the room for the rest of the day.

So Blaine has had a lot of practice in making his voice sound as strong and reassuring as he can, for them, for Kurt - _anything for you_, _Kurt,_ Blaine keeps thinking and saying a lot these days still.

"_Can I place my hand on yours, so I can…I can pull away, when I need to?" _Kurt had asked with sadness, for even having to make such a request.

"_Of course."_

So then they had sat there, skin really touching for the first time since the attack in more than an accidental fleeting brush that always makes Kurt jump involuntarily.

Two minutes in, Blaine had actually been the one to pull away. Having watched Kurt carefully, he had seen the change, the constantly quickening pace of Kurt's chest rising and falling.

Kurt had been pushing himself to try and make it last.

But Blaine had been able to tell, and heartbroken - that Kurt was pushing too hard, and hurting - had pulled back himself.

He had not been able to just sit there and let it happen..watch on, until Kurt would pass out from the panic spreading quickly through his whole body.

"_Baby-steps,_" Blaine had smiled in reassurance as their hands had come to rest next to each other, between them, on the couch, and Kurt breathing begun to slowly even again.

"_Baby-penguin steps?"_ Kurt had asked with a hopeful, almost cheeky smile that had taken Blaine utterly by surprise.

Blaine's breath had hitched in his throat before he had been able to reply with a shaky half-gasp, and tears welling up in his eyes, _"Baby-penguin steps."_

There are steps, undoubtedly, but taking them is hard, and painful, to both of them - maybe because so many of them have to be taken alone. And all they can do is hope they are on a course to meet each other again some day...hope they do not miss the other...hope they do not have to leave each other behind.

_They call it an equal-opportunity rapist, _the words, Kurt's words keep echoing in Blaine's mind again and again, along with other phrases Kurt has started to use, Blaine suspects unconsciously.

At the moment, anything said by Kurt towards Blaine alone...are still outbursts of this kind, phrases.

Blaine is never sure what exactly they mean to Kurt, but if saying them helps somehow, Blaine will listen to them as long as it takes.

Somehow it is like Kurt cannot think it possible for Blaine to understand full sentences formed, when it comes to this topic. But Blaine also knows it is hard for Kurt to form any full-sentence when it comes to this, and not just with him. Blaine has listened to Elly and Kurt talk often enough by now that he has been able to realize that Kurt does not talk all that different with Elly,..._Elly simply knows better how to listen and...hear...get the meanings Blaine misses._

For that, and many other reasons Blaine is so incredibly thankful for Elly's friendship to Kurt.

Being allowed to listen to them talk, since a couple of weeks now, and to learn about the things Kurt allows himself to think and talk through with Elly, always that little, sometimes a lot more freely…

…Blaine hopes, that if he pays enough attention one day he will be able to be the one, again, to be able to give Kurt what he needs - even though Blaine suspects, right now, Kurt does not think that possible ever again, _"I am so broken, Blaine, Love."_

Yes, they have started calling each other that again, _"Love," _days ago only. The hope it has sparked in Blaine to hear Kurt call him _his Love_ again, after over seven months, it has Blaine feel so intensely that every single time he hears Kurt say it so softly, he fears passing out the next second, and has to actively remind himself to keep breathing.

Holding hands is still all they do, and Blaine cannot help but be reminded of the time they first became boyfriends, and think..._holding hands with Kurt will always be plenty. _

It is not the sex Blaine misses, it is the hugs, the cuddling..._being held. Being allowed, being longed to hold and comfort. Being close in that way._

Elly is here today like she is every Thursday now.

Elly and Kurt meet at least twice a week, often more, usually more - on Thursdays definitely though, to sit down and catch up on their favorite Tv-shows together, and then talk some more,... a lot more.

It used to be their thing, Kurt and Blaine's, Thursday nights, Tv and talking.

Blaine has accepted though, and fast too, that…"_that right now I cannot call shotgun on Kurt's life_," as Blaine had told Burt weeks ago only, when Burt visiting had voiced concern for Blaine's mental well-being.

Shaking his head, a sad frown on his face, Blaine had added, "_Loving someone is so much more than spending all the time you can together."  
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Pulled firmly into Burt's warmth a second later, as they had stood in the kitchen, Blaine had started sobbing into Burt's embrace within seconds, _"I miss seeing him smile, so much...and...holding him." _Burt had tightened his embrace knowingly._  
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Today, mugs of tea before them, Kurt, Elly, and Blaine are sitting around the kitchen table.

Blaine watches Elly nod in understanding, so obviously there, every time Kurt does not have the words to spell out what he feels. Elly does not need to hear it, she knows.

And Blaine feels like an absolute sicko for envying her that understanding she has, for understanding Kurt,_…with all she has been through, because of all they have been through_.

"It scares me so much how little it takes for me to…to…," Kurt breaks off in a sob, hard and sharp.

"Can I hold your hand?" Blaine asks lovingly, trying hard to keep his voice steady and above a so natural feeling soft whisper.

Asking for permission, having to ask for permission to do this, something once so natural to both of them…so very much desired, it adds a new crack to Blaine's heart every single time.

It has him think, too.

Think that…_Maybe my heart, my core needs to be broken, shattered, like Kurt's has been. I will do it, I will rip it out, if it means I can truly be with you again._

It is not the first time he has had this thought, has had to reprimand himself for having it. He just so desperately wants… _to understand, to be able to be, once again, the one to give Kurt what he needs. _

Blaine fears more than anything that he will never be enough again, for Kurt,…_that Kurt needs something else,…someone else, to ever be happy again. _

Kurt links his left hand with Blaine's right, and as Blaine looks up to Kurt from their linked hands on the table, such a rare sight now, he finds Kurt looking at Elly to his own right, while Elly's eyes, a sad, dark brown are searching out Blaine's.

"Blaine, I know we don't usually talk all that much…I just…I hope you know how great you and Kurt are doing. I still…I still can't sit close to anyone, let alone hold hands. You are going to make it through this…one day, you'll see."

Kurt feels, something warm and wet hit the hand laced with Blaine's and looks from Elly back at Blaine.

Blaine expects Kurt to pull away when he feels the first tug on his fingers, not for Kurt to lift their hands to his mouth and place a kiss to Blaine's.

When Blaine finally manages to find the courage to look away from Elly, and his and Kurt's gazes meet, Blaine's tears have already started to fall heavier, grow only thicker when Blaine hears Kurt say, "We can make it."

Blaine chokes back down a wet sob, "I want us to make it, Love. So much. I want to be enough…for you…to grow happy again…together." _...it is just so hard to believe in anything right now._ Blaine does not say it out loud. After all, what really matters is..."I want us to be happy again."

It had never been the act of holding hands that had made Kurt and Blaine happy, but the knowledge that in doing so, that with a gesture so simple, they had been able to spend comfort to each other.

Nothing is simple anymore now. But then again, nothing _really _ever has been...but it had felt that way - and that alone had counted for so much.


	4. Clouded Blue

A/N: Have been working on this for some time. Was time to post it. Once in a while I find my way back and cannot resist the intense pull this story and its characters have on me.

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><p><strong>Clouded Blue<strong>

It has been raining cats and dogs for hours already when there is a knock on the door.

Because of the thunder Blaine misses it…, the first time.

When he pulls the front door open, a girl with sad brown eyes is standing there, drenched in rainwater.

Her long dark brown hair is plastered to her skull, neck and shoulders. Her several sizes too big jeans and jumper drenched reveal the small form any other day perfectly well hidden under them.

"Elly," Blaine exclaims in surprise at her sight; affectionate, loving Blaine, all instincts demanding him to reach out and pull her deep in his arms, knows he has to fight the impulse. '_I would just scare her away_.'

So instead he takes a big step back, taking the door with him, pulling it open wide.

"Please, come in."

Looking around noticeably nervous she takes several long strides into the room, quickly passing Blaine, she is still shaking with cold; Blaine hopes it is just cold.

He does not miss how she flinches as she hears the door being closed behind her, and is not surprised to see her quickly turning around to keep her eyes on him, but without meeting his gaze directly.

Blaine finds himself wondering if she knows his eye-color at all, '_not that it matters, people apparently sometimes cannot remember that about their husbands and wives. If you believe the trashy talk show circuit. I could not live without knowing Kurt's eyeshade of the day, ever-changing like a stormy sea. Right! Storm. Rain. Elly!' _"Elly?"

"Where is Kurt?"

"He is out at the moment, I'll call him for you, okay? But first I get you some dry clothes and a towel."

"I … I don't know," Elly whispers hesitantly inching back towards the door in a wide circle around Blaine, eyes on him all the while.

It breaks so many wounds, still fresh, back open in him to see her so much like he had had to see Kurt not very long ago. It reminds him, if he likes it or not, the attack on Elly longer ago than that on Kurt, _'Time does not heal everyone at the same speed, and it is never time alone that heals anything, it needs more, we need more, and that is important. And that is okay.'_ And he wishes he would dare to speak the thought out loud, but does not, unsure how she would take it.

Her hand is already on the doorknob behind her, eyes still fixed on Blaine's shirt somewhere, when he says, decidedly soft but voice still strong, remembering what Kurt had told him about _'his, their?, attacker's tone of voice,' _and how could Blaine ever forget it, "Elly, Kurt will be back very soon, I promise. And you can pick one room to stay in, if you like, and I'll stay in a different one. Just please don't go back into the cold and rain. I don't want you to get sick out there."

Lips opening and closing several times but no sound being produced she finally brings out, surprised, "You would do this for me?" with one glance at and a nod of her head towards the coffee table, with papers spread everywhere, and a hot drink still releasing steam, clearly marking it as his current work place.

"Of course," Blaine says, eyes wide with surprise of his own she would doubt it. "Elly," Blaine says her name softly, asking her to look at him, please.

It takes her a moment to raise her eyes to meet his, "Yeah?"

"Do you know how incredibly much you have helped Kurt? How much you have given us back?"

"I …," she shakes her head more in disbelief than denial of Blaine's statement. "It's nothing."

"It's everything," Blaine says voice dropping to a soft whisper. He sees her flinch instantly, and immediately speaks up again, as he has learned Kurt needs him to. "Sorry, so sorry. I should pay more attention."

"Why?"

"What do you m…?" Blaine is about to ask, honestly confused when he takes in stray raindrops still occasionally running down her face from her hair and … remembers, "Elly, please let me get you some dry clothes."

She nods once, it is a small gesture, and Blaine nearly misses it.

He gestures to the sofa, before turning and heading for '… _our bedroom_.' Blaine's insides still do strange things to him whenever he catches himself thinking it, saying it.

So long it had seemed no more than a dream he would eventually have to give up on.

But Kurt is full of surprises.

And Blaine really should not have been surprised at all, therefore, when two days, '… _only two days ago_,' Kurt had asked him to stay with him. They had nothing more than lain there, under the covers of their bed, looking at each other and eventually fallen asleep, both fully clad in pajama tops and pants, socks even, Kurt's head resting on his left arm, while his right hand had kept holding Blaine's left in between them all night.

Blaine is still overwhelmed right now thinking back, and has to stop and stand, just stand there, in the middle of the room for a moment and breathe before he moves over to the dresser.

Blaine quickly pulls fresh comfortable clothes, all Kurt's, and an especially fluffy towel from one of the drawers, and a warm blanket in which '… _she can wrap herself later to warm up faster_,' he thinks.

Forget later.

When he comes back into the living room Elly is sitting on the couch, head in her hands, crying.

Blaine wishes his touch, his warmth could do something, but he knows it would only make things more complicated, probably unbearable, for Elly.

So he drops everything but the blanket into the first armchair he passes and saying her name places the warm blanket, well-loved blanket, around her tiny form.

She briefly freezes, than shivers more heavily for a moment, two, … longer.

It does take a couple of deep shuddering breathes from Elly, and for Blaine to sit down on the floor, opposite her, on the other side of the coffee table to calm down a little more.

There is distance between them, distance that is safety to her, maybe even comfort, in an unusual way many people would not understand. All of it together allows her to … really breathe, just get breathing again.

Blaine has seen it too often with Kurt all these months, the pain of being close to anyone mixed with the sharpness, digging into mind and bones, of the impossible desire to not be, not feel, so desperately alone. And he feels like that is why she is here today, but Kurt is not, and his absence alone is pain enough, is pain too much to her. And Blaine …

Blaine has no idea what to do next.

"Elly?" As she does not answer he allows the quiet to settle and hopes a little true calm will come with it before he tries again, "Elly? What did you mean earlier when you asked _'Why?'_"

She speaks through thick tears rolling down her face, and her voice scratchy and hoarse from crying, "Why am I anything to you, or Kurt? How can anyone still care about me? How can anyone _ever_ love me now, after …."

"I love Kurt no less for what happened. I love him more for fighting …."

She interrupts him, more sadness in her voice than Blaine has even heard in Kurt's, "It's different."

And now it is Blaine's turn to ask, "Why?"

Her eyes stay dead and pinned to the sheet music on the coffee table between them as her lips twitch into a dry half smile, sad and so obviously broken, "You loved him before. No one has ever loved me. Now no one ever will."

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><p>AN: I think I just broke my own heart writing this, it hurts. A possible next chapter would pick up right here. Because Blaine needs to freaking figure out how to help her, I wish, I hope, he can and will. But I haven't decided on writing it yet. I'll see. Your input, your voice is of course as always welcomed, loved and appreciated. I feel a little bad about ending this chapter in such sadness. But truly, everything else would have felt fake to me. And that is the one thing I could not bear to do in my writing ... fake. And ... I may know nothing more real than sadness.


	5. Driftwood

**A/N: **I have written most of this a long, long time ago, we are talking late 2012 long ago; but a couple of nights last week something inside me crushed and clicked and I HAD to come back here. This is _the story_ of maybe all of mine, ever, that pulls me close and won't let me go and scares me to write, scares me into writing maybe too, all at once.

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><p><strong>Driftwood <strong>

She cannot find the strength to lift her head or her eyes, water drops still gathering in her hair, sliding across her pale skin, unpredictable, ice-cold, "I can't stop feeling dirty today." The words are surprisingly dry, even.

Their echo gives away inside Blaine to the dreadful realization that it, this is a feeling old to Elly, close, familiar, in the worst of ways – crowding, choking, all over a body she can no longer call her own _'… and mean it.'_

Blaine has to fight hard to keep his thoughts from racing to Kurt. He cannot help but see or look for the connections – dreadful, dreaded similarities.

Blaine wants to be here for Elly.

But there is one thought he cannot shake, step past or through, _'You are here because you are sure Kurt understands.' _And like almost every new thing Blaine manages to fight his way to, learn about his new Kurt, it has him wanting to crawl into a corner, curl-up, cry ... until he can be strong again, strong for Kurt, for himself, for Elly and everyone else who might need him. Blaine has not understood yet, despite having spoken exactly those words to Kurt, may times, that crying does never mean you are nor could ever make you weak. That what happens when you allow those tears, your tears to role only ever makes you stronger.

Kurt is not the only one who has had nightmares since the day he was raped. And Blaine has not done enough crying, not yet. And so they are captives, both of them, locked in suspense, pain, most of all fears unacknowledged or even still unknown.

And Blaine feels his insides about to burst with it all.

Unlike Elly Kurt had never said it out loud, and Blaine had not known that hearing it would bring him to feel such agony. Even after having known, and how could he not have? Having seen Kurt's face scrubbed red and raw after every endless shower, to the point of drawing blood some times, more times ... than not.

And Kurt's body ... Blaine has not seen it in any other state than fully covered in so very long. Still he knows the rest of his soft and fragile pale skin had each time been scrubbed so raw all over it had been torn _'...in all those places ...'_, like paper too thin to write on, to bear the weight of so much as the pen's point, in places, each one one too many.

Clothes light in colors would show the bloody stains sometimes.

Do still ... on the worst days.

Every moment since the rape, his Kurt's rape, Blaine has been wishing that one day Kurt will be ready to talk to him, really talk, so that Blaine can help, try to help, Kurt, and both of them … and then try more, try anew. For all that happiness they had been working on still _'... before any of this had ever happened.' _Now Blaine some days can hardly recall this time anymore at all.

He needs Kurt to allow him _'... to try more.'_

Blaine has wrestled with all these things, through all of it. But never had he thought he would be sitting here, in their apartment talking to a 17 year-old girl, trying to help her see what he knows he has not even yet been able to give back to his fiance.

"Elly, you are not dirty. You have never been …."

She almost screams the words, "But I am! He is inside of me, part of … _this_," she wildly gestures along her form. "He will always stay. I will never get to be me. I hadn't even found myself yet at all. I only want a chance …, that chance, … to be me. And I can't. I will never be me now. And no one can give that back to me. It's gone. I'm gone," she sobs through her burning throat.

Blaine, not knowing what to say or do, watches Elly struggling with the blanket still covering her soaking wet clothes, pulling the blanket tighter around herself one moment, then almost throwing it off completely, about to rid herself of ... scratch off her own skin.

That need to get away from _'... that thing I am now ...'_ won't leave. Run, not to lose herself, _'... there is nothing left to be lost ...'_ but the part that man has left too deep inside of her, dark and all consuming, disturbing every one of those now tiny thoughts once clear with love.

'_Poisoned now … .' _Even the thought of a touch, _'... anyone's touch … .' _Elly looks up then, finds Blaine standing right next to her.

"Elly?"

She does throw off the blanket then.

And before Blaine can reach the girl buried beneath all that rubble of what is, and what once was, but never will be again, Elly is out of the door.

Blaine scrambling for his phone, with one press of a button the dial tone ringing shrill in his ear, his insides thrumming heavy with the desperate need for Kurt to answer the call, he knows already ... _'Elly is gone.' _The sinking feeling nagging at him that she had never really been within his reach.

"Kurt!"

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><p>AN: Many of you know my habit by now, to list stories as complete if I don't know, really just cannot tell myself if and when I will ever write more for them. I intend to return to this, as I personally do know for myself what will be happening next. But as you have seen with this particular update ... writing it all down can take me the strength of years. So I hope you don't hate me for handling it all the way I do. Thank you for reading, and please know I am grateful for every one of you, sticking around or not. Thank you for beginning this read in the first place.


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